Reprinted with permission from Medium.

It finally happened. I guess on some level, I knew it was inevitable. There’s only so far you can overextend yourself. Eventually, you won’t be able to stay one step ahead of it anymore.

That time came for me in September 2021. I’d been doing the calculations since May. Running the numbers. Looking over old contracts. Rifling through associated paperwork.

There was no denying it any longer. It could not be avoided.

I knew what I had to do.

It was time to declare sexual bankruptcy.

The Basics of Sexual Bankruptcy

If you’re not familiar with the process of sexual bankruptcy, let me enlighten you as to how it works.

There are no attorneys involved. No hearings, no courts.

Though let me add that in some cases, there should be. If our system worked the way it should, a legal audit might be a necessary part of the process in certain cases.

Perhaps in mine. But we’ll cover that later.

Some aspects of this process are similar to financial bankruptcy. There are records to go through, receipts to sort, numbers to crunch. These calculations and collections are not necessarily pleasant. Sometimes, they can cause a great deal of pain and shame. But you push on because there is nothing else to be done.

When you finish this process, there is nowhere to file the paperwork. That’s the problem with sexual bankruptcy. The other end of it is an empty space. (Which is kinda the point — it always has been an empty space.)

Then, paperwork still in hand, comes the debt reckoning. This is where things truly diverge from financial bankruptcy for some of us. There might be no one to claim a debt that you owe. On the contrary, the debts owed might be to you.

Next is liquidation. This phase does not entail selling your assets to repay the debts you owe. But make no mistake, there is a process of deconstructing, dissolving, dissolution. You liquidate the hope that you had that your sexual history would have — could have — been any better. You accept the fact that the coffers are empty and that you’ve been scraping by with pennies your whole life.

You won’t get back what you lost. There will be no back payments, no loans forgiven, no recompense.

You just zero out. And start again.

The Final Tally

I am not afraid to assert that there are a lot of debts owed to me.

The list of lost opportunities for pleasure, and apologies I am owed is endless. This list only fits on spreadsheets without a limit for rows, or magical scrolls that never stop unspooling.

• Throwing me against walls and onto mattresses was not okay. Sleeping with my best friend behind my back — no, no, no. Making exhaustive lists of how unf***able I was right before you f***ed me? Goddammit, you owe me.
• Withholding orgasms because you didn’t want me to develop feelings for you? No. I’ve got the numbers here. The number of orgasms you owe me. The number of times you should have put your face in my crotch to get me off. I’ve put figures to it. I’ve made a stack of IOUs. To me. From you. All to be burned, because you defaulted on them from the get-go. But make no mistake: the record exists.
• Nitpicking me about my body hair. Turning me into a million positions that you would like without ever asking me if I was enjoying myself. Pinning me to the floor while I cried and said no. That bill has come due and you’re not going to believe the amount of interest that has accrued.
• Ignoring my insistence that I wanted you to wear a condom. Ignoring every boundary I had around that. Treating our sexual encounter like a corporate negotiation. Here are the contracts you broke. Note your signature at the bottom of each one. All are currently in default. Yes, I’ll be seeking damages.

Unofficial witnesses, please note, this is by no means an exhaustive list. Just a handful of highlights.

A Clean Slate

When you finish the process of filing for sexual bankruptcy, it comes with a strange feeling. I can’t really describe it. It’s something like puzzlement, mixed with grief. A fresh start — but one that was born of a million tiny deaths.

Like anything in life, the experiences weren’t useless. It’s not all garbage. There were good times. Occasionally, the books got balanced.

But I filed for sexual bankruptcy for a reason. This isn’t what I wanted — or deserved. Bread crumbs. And sometimes poison.

I was built for something else. Feasts. Dionysian tables bedecked with goblets of wine, meat gleaming with its own juices, voluptuous loaves of bread, fruit swollen at the peak of its ripeness.

That’s what I want. That’s what I deserve. That’s what this body and heart were designed for.

So I declare the past over and done with. I have burned the defaulted IOUs, and torn up the broken contracts.

It was sad. And stressful. And there was shame. Though I think I can fairly say that the shame isn’t —and shouldn’t be — mine. That must go in the liquidation column, too. I choose to leave that behind.

And now, on this clean slate, I am relearning. Not relearning old lessons — but learning something different. Not “again,” but “another version.” I am diving deeper on the spiral.

Yes, there are classes for this, just like the debtor education courses. And I am determined to be a gold star student. On the honor roll.

That is the best part about hitting bottom: you can only go up from here.